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czenzi

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Everything posted by czenzi

  1. Honestly, my thesis was borderline insanity, but I managed to make it through with a very understanding adviser. I hope you find good fits for you!
  2. Hi Mattie, I have a similar background in that I started of in theater, did theater throughout college, but ultimately ended up in a literature and politics track for my major. I later even worked with drama as foundation of my political science M.A. (I'm still amazed they let me.) In some ways, I do understand what you are getting at. For me, dramatic literature is highly analyzed and interpreted as it goes into production, through table work and dramaturgy and whatnot but within the confines of an English department it seems like we loose sight of how to interpret it in those ways (especially in its performance aspects). I know Minnesota has been mentioned (and it was recommended to me too), so I thought I'd chime in with some less obvious but still possibly good fits. You might also look at U of Rochester if you are looking toward early modern drama. It looks like they have integrated theater into their department fairly successfully at the undergraduate level and you might be able to find a good adviser there. The University of Texas also has the ability to specialize in drama and publishes their reading list for the field if you need to get an idea of the program. Several years ago the University of Wisconsin had an excellent section on dramatic literature in their published reading list for their comp. exams that led me to believe they had some good faculty there. I'm not sure if their department still has that focus at all (it seems less so at first glance, sadly), but it's maybe worth a look. Czenzi
  3. Thank you all. This board has been really positive and helpful. I really appreciate it.
  4. This is a really good list. I'm going to take some ideas from it as well. (And, I like Ranciere too.)
  5. Thank you echo449 for your help. I've actually looked at a couple of these (Duke and Chicago), but their admissions statistics are terrifying. I am less familiar with some of the others and will start looking into them. Any other insights would still be most appreciated.
  6. Hi, I have used this board before (a long time ago) but I am now looking to move on to a PhD program in the (slightly distant) future. I will be applying for grad school likely not next year, but the one after, but I am trying to get organized well in advance. So, I was wondering if people who had just gone through the process or are going through it soon might be able to help me come up with a list of programs that would be good fits for me. I would really appreciate the input. I have a double major in English literature and political science. It's from a regional university that even I had barely heard of before I attended there, but I did well there. I worked several years at the university Writing Center in addition to another part-time job, was involved on campus, graduated with honors and a fellowship with an internship in the federal government. After that I taught EFL for several years in Japan. I then got a M.A. from a well-known continental European university in an interdisciplinary international relations program. I graduated there with honors and a distinction for my thesis. I'm retaking my GRE because the original is the old version. I scored middling in math, very high in verbal and passable in the writing from what I remember. I suspect it will be the same, with maybe a better writing score this time. I currently work as an adjunct at two local colleges teaching lower division government classes. Put simply, my research interests include political theory and aesthetic theory, particularly in the way fine art, drama, and literature reflect and critique both ideologies and periods of political transition. I am also interested in the role of art in mass movements, e.g. the futurists' public stagings in the 1910s and the situationist movement's role in the 1968 French protests. My M.A. thesis focused on early Soviet art institutions, but I am not necessarily interested in limiting my PhD to that time period. I assume I will need to look at literature or comparative literature programs with some focus on interdisciplinary studies or theory. I am a bit worried that my undergrad school's lack of a name is a detriment, as will be my likely average overall GRE score. I am also a bit worried that the fact that I have a split focus with politics will make me seem less appealing to literature programs' admissions boards. Any tips to help mitigate these issues would be appreciated. Thank you in advance for giving advice, Czenzi
  7. I agree pretty much with everyone so far. This thread is really heavy on singer-songwriter types, and I'm sorry I'm not really shifting that balance, but I'll add Gillian Welch, The Mountain Goats, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, PJ Harvey, Elliott Smith, Iron & Wine and Nick Cave. Also, I feel like its almost a requirement to mention The Smiths since it seems they haven't been already. (Though I'm sorry if someone did and I missed it.)
  8. I took it this fall and also had to fly to another country to do so. It wasn't fun because of the expense and because I was still jet-lagged when I took it. (Do try and give yourself some tome to rest before the test day.) I definitely had more reading comprehension on my test than anything else, but I really don't think there's any way of knowing what you'll get before you take it. Good luck.
  9. Tsuga, I never took the old test, but I was one of the first batch of people to take the new test. I did find the new practice books helpful for general iformation and for taking practice tests, but mine erred slightly on the side of too easy. Learn the question types and when it is best to guess and when it is best to leave an answer blank. A books should teach you this and I found that it helped. In general, there is still plenty of vocab on the test, but none of the analogies or antonyms. The reading passages seemed a little longer than what I expected from the test books for the old version, so I would focus on improving your reading speed and comprehension to cope with the new test's shift in focus to reading comprehension. Also, for the sentence completion section you will still have to know word meanings. There were a couple of unfamiliar words, but I managed to use context clues and process of elimination to get through them. I never use flashcards for anything, so I can't tell you if those will help, but my strategy is to try learning vocabulary in context. It really helps me to remember new words. I realize you probably don't have time to acquire vocab through just doing a lot of reading, but as you learn new words try to go over a couple of example sentences so you can stick the words in your head better and get a better feel for how they are used. Also, I would focus on secondary definitions, as they do show up. It may be helpful as well to review root words, suffixes and/or prefixes if you have a background in a language like Latin, Greek, German or French (I don't know how much learning a whole bunch of prefixes from scratch would help though. I don't have a background in any of these languages, so I didn't focus on this part at all). I agree with wildviolet that it is important to do well on the first section. The test is still adaptive, but it is no longer recalculated as you go along (like on the previous version), but only after you complete a section. This basically means that if you do well on the first section, you've set yourself up for higher-point questions in the second section (meaning you can afford to miss more and get the same score as someone who did two easy or medium difficulty sections). However, while taking the test, I would not spend time actively trying to figure out whether or not your second section is harder than the first because [A] I think it'll waste time, cause you to lose focus and cause more anxiety than it's worth, and It actually can be hard to tell in the moment because of self-doubt/stress/bad memory recall. Oh, and from what I've seen on the conversion charts, the 90% percentile is a 162. However, I have a feeling that ETS will probably re-scale these scores in a year or so after they have a larger test-taking population for the new test. Best of luck in studying!
  10. jma310, I think your possibly right, but I didn't apply to Maryland, so I have no idea how their process works. (I'm only here because any movement on the boards makes my heart flutter.) I'm assuming many of you did apply there, so I hope everyone hears good news from them soon.
  11. The Maryland posting bums me out because I foolishly thought, "Aw, the schools won't notify on the weekends," and I made a promise to myself that Saturday and Sunday would be the two days every week that I wouldn't go into admissions-decision-freakout mode. I live overseas, so I even calculated the time differences so that I knew specifically when I could stop compulsively checking my cell phone battery and email account. Now, I'm back to worrying all the time.
  12. Hi Siarabird, I feel your pain. Math is not my strength either, and it's been a few years since I took a class in it. When I took a diagnostic test for the GRE, I did horribly on that section. But, I worked through the math section of a practice book and took some time to review equations. When the test came, I actually did decently on that section. It is doable, even if math is a marked weakness. The good news is that the new version of the GRE has a built in calculator, which helps save time on basic calculations. Just make sure you give yourself time to practice and relearn concepts. It does mean pulling a little time away from other things that could be studied but, because the type of math that the GRE tests is pretty specific, the time drain wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
  13. Hi, I'm new to the boards, but I feel like this is the best place to introduce myself. Every school I applied to this year (I suspect there will be a next year) was a reach, and the waiting is starting to get to me . . .
  14. Hi, I know very little about the cost of living Buffalo, but $13,600 is a probably around the standard offer. Regardless, in most places in America it will mean that you will have to be very frugal. As for the professors in the complit department, I met two of them when they were working at a different university. I was not a student there but know someone who was, and my impression was that they were incredibly nice people and very serious about their work and their expectations of their graduate students. Congrats!
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